I can’t think of a better way to start the year than to announce that our 3rd Annual Ultimate Road Warrior contest is over. And in your hands you hold the results of hundreds of hours of hard work on the part of our staff, and on the part of all who entered. And that adds up to a special issue filled with hours of entertaining and enlightening reading for you.

But it’s only a fraction of all of the fascinating stuff that our readers included in their entries. You’ll notice, in fact, that in an attempt to fit in as many Road Warrior stories as we could, we decided to bump the UpFront section from this issue. (Never fear, it will return in all its glory in the January 15 issue.) I think it’s also safe to say that you’ll be seeing even more great stuff from the Road Warrior entries throughout the year. Jill Becker, our senior editor, became so attached to this project that she just can’t stop thinking about all of the interesting things we’ve read (and has even started having dreams about the contest entries). So we figure it’s a good idea not to waste that brain power and to share the wealth with you.

It took each and every one of our staffers to get through the almost 10,000 en­tries we received — a number no doubt influenced by the fantastic prizes donated by our generous sponsors, Hilton, Bose, Panasonic, and T-Mobile. You can’t imagine how difficult it was to weigh one entry against another, and the reading and debates went on for hours.

Once we chose the top 20, the finalists were called and asked three new Road Warrior-related ques­tions. We then listened to their audiotaped answers and debated the merits of each one. In the end, we were pleased with the results of all 20, but surprisingly, it was almost unanimous on who the top five should be.

That’s them on the cover, at the Hilton Tucson El Conquistador, which is where we got them together for a whirlwind photo shoot. If you click here, you can learn their vital statistics and read part of their winning entries. They’re an impressive bunch, and getting to meet such fun, interesting, and well-traveled people was definitely a highlight of the contest.

If you weren’t a winner this year, don’t give up. Archie Tew, our grand-prize winner, was actually a finalist last year, and one other entrant has made the top 15 the last two years. So it definitely pays to keep trying.

We’ll start accepting entries for the 4th annual contest early this summer — which is sooner than it seems — so you might want to start thinking about your entry now.